An American/German Drama: Crash - Essay Example

Waters is told by a fellow police officer that a body had been discovered; however, what Waters sees at the crime scene is not immediately known to the audience, for the scene jumps to a lengthy montage of scenes that took place almost two days prior to the accident: Inside a gun shop, a Persian father, Farhad, and his daughter, Dorri, are purchasing a gun, but are hampered and hurried from the shop by the shop owner, who is against the two not speaking English; the defense attorney and his wife, Rick, and Jean, are carjacked by two black men, Anthony and Peter; Jean is having the locks changed on her house, and the locksmith, Daniel, overhears himself being regarded as a gang member; in a diner where two Asians are conversing amongst themselves, a police officer, Ryan, is on the phone with a medical assistant, Shaniqua, who promptly hangs up when he makes a racist comment.

After Ryan and his partner, Hansen, leave and begin their duties, they pull over a black vehicle on suspicions of sexual activity while driving. The black couple, Cameron and Christine, exit the vehicle when Ryan directs them to; Cameron is polite and cooperative, though Christine is drunk, which shows through her actions and speech. Ryan frisks Christine, though what he is essentially doing is sexually molesting her. After he finishes, he allows the couple to continue on their way.Another series of montages begins again, going off of the original scenes, continuing from the previous montages.

Christine is beside herself with anger that Cameron did nothing to stop with Ryan had done to her, though Cameron firmly believes that he acted in the way that he was supposed to; Daniel is putting his daughter to bed after comforting her when she hears a gunshot; Anthony and Peter, in their stolen car, accidentally hit one of the Asian men from the diner, who is then dropped off at a hospital; Hansen is attempting to have his partner, Ryan, replaced, claiming that he cannot tolerate his racism.

Numerous scene jumps take place throughout the film, divulging more into the individual stories, each one displaying more racism and less tolerance to diversity. Each character’s situation exacerbates, and the tension heightens in the story as characters lash out against each other in regard to their skin color. Acts of racism break out with each scene, until a turning point in the story when Ryan helps Christine after she gets involved in a car accident and becomes trapped in her car. Ryan saves Christine’s life; they see each other a little differently now, all racial tension aside.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Hansen and Peter, one of the carjacking men. The two share a car ride when Peter notices that Hansen has a small statue of St. Christopher on his dashboard. Hansen thinks Peter is laughing at him; however, when Peter reaches into his pocket to pull out his own statue of St. Christopher, Hansen thinks he is reaching for a gun, pulls out his own, and kills him. After realizing that Peter had been reaching for a statue, Hansen dumps the body. The movie is now back at the scene from which it has started, and the audience finally sees what Waters has been staring at: the body of Peter, who turns out to be Waters’ brother.

From here, the rest of the story falls into place, with the montages coming together in conclusion. The Asian woman from the car accident at the beginning of the film in the hospital with her husband, the man from the diner that had been hit. Farhad, angry at Daniel’s ill-attempts at repairing his lock, shoots Daniel, though Daniel’s daughter gets in the way. Farhad fears that he has killed the little girl, only to find that the bullets he had used were blanks, and he becomes thankful that he was unable to achieve his original plan.

Each incident that has occurred during the course of the film is set right by the characters, with everyone coming together as one, all racial thoughts aside as people realize that skin color and ethnicity are not what defines a human being.